Week 1: Introduction 

 

• Course introduction (course topics, format, course work, assignments, blog, etc.)

  

Week 2: Learning Process: How People Learn 

 

• Brown, J.S., Collins, A., and Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, vol. 18, no. 1.
• Bransford, J.D., Brown, A.L., & Cocking, R.R. (2000). How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School.Washington, DC: National Academy Press. (Chapter 1)
• Duckworth, E. (1987). The Having of Wonderful Ideas (Chapter 1). Teachers College Press.

 

Week 3: Creativity and Learning

 

• Florida, R. (2002). The Rise of the Creative Class. Basic Books. (Chapter 1 and Chapter 2)
• Resnick, M. (2007). All I Really Need to Know (About Creative Thinking) I Learned (By Studying How Children Learn) in Kindergarten. Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI conference on Creativity & Cognition, Washington, DC.
• Sawyer, R. Keith (2006). Educating for Innovation. Thinking Skills and Creativity, vol. 1, pp. 41-48.
• Fischer, G. (2004). Social Creativity: Turning Barriers into Opportunities for Collaborative Design. Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference

Week 4: Objects to Think with

 

• Turkle, S. (2007). “Evocative Objects: Things We Think With.” (Introduction and selected essays) 
• Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1981). Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and the Self (Chapter 2 and Chapter 7)

Week 5: Constructionist Learning

 

• Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas. Basic Books. (Foreword, Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 3, Chapter 8)
• Resnick, M., and Silverman, B. (2005). Some Reflections on Designing Construction Kits for Kids. Proceedings of Interaction Design and Children conference, Boulder, CO.
• LOGO programming

Week 6: Manipulatives and Digital Manipulatives

 

• Brosterman, N. (1997). Inventing kindergarten. 
• Lillard, P. (1972). Montessori: A modern Approach (Chapter 3)
• Raffle, H. (2004). Topobo for Tangible Learning.
• Zuckerman, O. (in preparation). Historical Overview and Classification of Traditional and Digital Learning Objects.

Week 7: Play and Learning

 

• Zigler, E., Singer, D., & Bishop-Josef, S. (2004). Children’s Play (Chapter 1). Zero to Three Press.
• Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Golinkoff, R. (2003). Einstein Never Used Flash Cards (Chapter 9). 
• Rogoff, B. (1980). Apprenticeship in Thinking (Chapter 7). 

Week 8: Different Learning Styles

 

• Gardner, H. (1998). A Multiplicity of Intelligences. Scientific American.
• Turkle, S., & Papert, S. (1990). Epistemological Pluralism. Signs, vol. 16, no. 1
• Turkle, S., Life on the Screen (chapter 2)

Week 9: Midterm progress report 

Week 10: Learning through Personal Fabrication, Arts and Crafts

 

• Eisenberg, M. (2003). Mindstuff: Educational Technology Beyond the Computer. Convergence.
• Gershenfeld, N. (2005). FAB: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop - From Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication.

Week 11: Storytelling and Literacy 

 

• Cassell, J (2004) “Towards a Model of Technology and Literacy Development: Story Listening Systems” Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 25 (1): 75-105 .
• Guha et al. (2007). A Theoretical Model of Children’s Storytelling Using Physically-Oriented Technologies (SPOT). Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, v16 n4 p389-410. 

Week 12: Virtual Places and Learning

 

• Bruckman, A. (1997). MOOSE Crossing: Construction, Community, and Learning in a Networked Virtual World for Kids. PhD Dissertation, MIT Media Lab. Chapters 1 and 2.
• Bers, M. (in press). The Role of New Technologies to Foster Positve Youth Development. Journal of Applied Developmental Science, vol. 11, no. 1.
• Borovoy, R., et al. (2001). Folk Computing: Revisiting Oral Tradition as a Scaffold for Co-Present Communities. Proceedings of the CHI 2001 Conference.

Week 13: Learning Outside of School / After School Programs / Mentoring programs

 

• Resnick, M., Rusk, N., and Cooke, S. (1998). The Computer Clubhouse: Technological Fluency in the Inner City. In Schon, D., Sanyal, B., and Mitchell, W. (eds.), High Technology and Low-Income Communities, pp. 266-286. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Resnick, M. (2001). Closing the Fluency Gap. Communications of the ACM, vol. 44, no. 3.
• Warschauer, M. (2002). Reconceptualizing the digital divide. First Monday, vol. 7, no. 7.

Other suggested readings:

• Shaw, A., and Shaw, M. (1998). Social Empowerment through Community Networks. In Schon, D., Sanyal, B., and Mitchell, W. (eds.), High Technology and Low-Income Communities, pp. 315-336. MIT Press.
• Walker, G. (1996). Social Change One on One: The New Mentoring Movement. American Prospect, no. 7, issue 27 (July 1996).
• Spencer, R. (2002). Empowering Children for Life: A Preliminary Report from the Robert and Grace Stone Primary Prevention Initiatives. Stone Center, Wellesley College.
• Sullivan, A. (1996). From Mentor to Muse: Recasting the Role of Women in Relationship with Urban Adolescent Girls. In Urban Girls (edited by Leadbeater and Way). NYU Press.
• Resnick, M., Kafai, Y., et al. (2003). A Networked, Media-Rich Programming Environment to Enhance Technological Fluency at After-School Centers in Economically-Disadvantaged Communities. Proposal to the National Science Foundation.
  

Week 14: Final Project Review I

Week 15: Final Project Review II